the same time he got rid of an office which
must be shared with a colleague of equal rank and the perpetual tenure of
which was a violation of constitutional tradition. The tribunician
authority was regarded as being held for successive annual periods, which
Augustus reckoned from 23 B. C.

*Special powers and honors.* At the time of the conferment of the
tribunician authority, a series of senatorial decrees added or gave
greater precision to the powers of Augustus. He received the right to
introduce the first topic for consideration at each meeting of the Senate,
his military _imperium_ was made valid within the _pomerium_, but, in view
of his resignation of the consulship, became proconsular in the provinces.
It was probably in 23 B. C. also that Augustus received the unrestricted
right of making war or peace, upon the occasion of the coming of an
embassy from the king of the Parthians. In the next year he was granted
the right to call meetings of the Senate. Three years later he was
accorded the consular insignia, with twelve lictors, and the privilege of
taking his seat on a curule chair between the consuls in office. These
marks of honor gave him upon official occasions the precedence among the
magistrates which his authority warranted. On the other hand, in 22 B. C.
Augustus refused the dictatorship or the perpetual consulship, which were
conferred upon him at the insistence of the city populace; and in the same
spirit he declined to accept a general censorship of laws and morals
(_cura legum et morum_) which was proffered to him in 19 B. C.

*The principate.* It was by the gradual acquisition of the above powers
that the position which Augustus was to hold in the state was finally
determined. This position may be defined as that of a magistrate, whose
province was a combination of various powers conferred upon him by the
Senate and the Roman people, and who differed from the other magistrates
of the state in the immensely wider scope of his functions and the greater
length of his official term. But these various powers were separately
conferred upon him and for each he could urge constitutional precedents.
It was in this spirit of deference to constitutional traditions that
Augustus did not create for himself one new office which would have given
him the same authority nor accept any position that would have clothed him
with autocratic power. Therefore, as he held no definite office, Augustus
had no definite offi